Hi All

I don’t often post direct reports about individual client hunts but this one is a special for me and with permission of the client I will provide this short report.

This was the last hunt that I guided of the (2009) season ... 7-full days – early sept. At this time of the year, almost all of the country has been burnt with some nice green grass poking through. Our main hunting concession is quite damp in the evenings, so even at the peak of the ‘Dry’- it still gets a little moisture overnight – enough to sprout the grass regrowth ....that the buffalo love so much.

The difference in the scenery from the start of the season till the end is just amazing. In June it is so lush and green and by end Sept it looks mostly like a black moon-scape!

Anyhow, client (Leon) took this fantastic bull on the second day – a great trophy bull of 106 inches green. He was shooting a 416Rem in Winchester... Swift A-frame and they performed very well. 416 is really the ‘ducks-nuts’ for buffalo.



It is easy to throw these kind of scores around but to put it into perspective – a 100-inch plus bull, in the wild, on any concession, is a very, very nice trophy... no ...better than nice. This in itself was one of the biggest bulls of the season.

After the first trophy we decided to fool around and look for a management bull and do a bit of fishing and duck hunting for the locals. We also set the crab traps out at the beach and caught 5 mud crabs which were ....ummmm...delicious!!

Leon took a management bull on the third day .... a really old broken up bull that REALLY needed to be taken out and the 416 did it with style. Turns out his nose bone was completely smashed off, from fighting I presume... old, old, nasty bull. Sorry I don’t have a photo of this one handy but if I can get it from Leon I will post it later.

Last few days we did some more fishing with more good success with the fly rod... lots of fun. In the mornings we hunted for management bulls but they were a bit hard to find. We saw lots of young trophy bulls and and a few good big trophies too - for next year.

On the last morning we were exploring up a massive creek system. It was getting late in the morning and we hadn’t seen much for a while... we were about to call it quits when I spotted a big old bull sneaking away out of a creekline. I told Leon he should come and take a look at THIS bull. I had had a pretty good look at him as he sneaked away and I KNEW he was a whopper..

As we cleared the creekline the old boy was standing in some thick stuff, already well onto us. Leon just said something like.... forget the “management bulls”!! I didn’t need to look through the binos.. he had everything!! We used some trees to get a little closer, about 70 yards and the bull was holding his ground, trying to work out what was going on. Leon got a good rest and let rip with the 416 and three shots had him on the ground in short order.



What we had here was a truely massive old bull... turns out he was a little broomed-off on one side, which means he didn’t score any more than 100 neat but BOY – he was 46 inches wide and carried his mass out like no other bull I have seen on the ground before. Halfway along his longest horn it is still 16 inches circumference...

This bull had absolutely NO teeth left – they were all broken off to the gums and I don’t know how he was even holding his condition so well. You couldn’t take this bull at a better time.... his time was UP!!



People ask me all the time what is the best time to get big bulls off this concession and the answer is that it really doesn’t matter – you can get the biggest bull on the first day, the 40th day or the last. day.... BUT if you can put up with the heat and the humidity and the black ash everywhere.... a late season hunt can be very fruitful. While many areas may have been picked-over we also get to access country that you just cant get into early in the season. I love doing late hunts... they are always very successful for the client who can put-up with the tougher conditions.

Anyhow – cheers for now
Matt

thanks for posting, that looks like a massive old bull. Well done!!!

Very nice. Congrats to Leon.

Aloha Matt,
Was that hunt conducted in Gan Gan just before we got there? Or, was it in Dorisvale? What a stunning bull. Congratulations to the hunter.

Geoff

No mate - this was the last hunt of the season at Gan Gan... first week of Sept. Pete had gone home so Leith and I did this hunt. Still PLENTY of cows left too!!

Cheers
MG

Matt

Excellent bulls! I really got into shooting those "Old Bulls" like the last one! Just something about taking one of those old boys! I was very lucky to have taken 3 of them myself in such a short time!

Great hunt for your clients.
Congrats.

Michael

Thanks Michael


Couple more images for y'all...


1st trophy bull

We've even got clients practising the 1000yd stare!! :rofl:



both trophy bulls, hunter and my brother Leith.

quote:

Couple more images for y'all...

What's this about

Great bulls there as well. Just gotta love that place. Maybe, just maybe there's a big one at Katherine in Aug 2010 eh?? That's if a banteng bull doesn't entice me away

Cheers,
Mark.

They are the same two bulls from the story above mate - just from a different angle and the last one with a bit of skin and flesh missing!!

Never know your luck at the boar camp mate - strange things can happen!! We had a client there a couple of years ago lucked into a monster... 107 inches. Im not sure that he really appreciated how special it was...

Matt
Quit shooting up all my bulls!!!!
Great pic's buddy, I cannot wait for my turn.
Cheers
Dave

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Fulson:
Matt
Quit shooting up all my bulls!!!!
Great pic's buddy, I cannot wait for my turn.
Cheers
Dave

we left a couple hundred for ya!!